THE PREPARATION MAN - Google translation from German: unchecked
Christoph Willer lives his biodynamic vocation
By Michael Olbrich-Majer
Disgust with cow dung? His fingers don't know any shyness. While we use other short woods as a spatula to stuff lumps of fresh, brown-green cow's flatbread into the ready-standing cow horns, Christoph Willer prefers to take his hand: you have more feeling and it goes faster. He shows the highest admiration for this substance. Not only that ecological farmers need the manure, and biodynamics especially for the production of the hummist preparation. A careful look at the manure also teaches a lot about the individual cow as well as about the operation. And, what the cow leaves "left over" is, after all, a kind of mental condensate of her digestive perception - a message to the soil and the plants that grow in it.
Stuffing horns together
Joint production of biodynamic preparations in the Demeter Working Group Brandenburg
In the round at the preparation meeting of the biodynamic working group Berlin-Brandenburg, there is less considered than diligent. Finally, there are plenty of horns to fill, a total of four tubs, and the preparations of oak bark and beef skull or Dandelion and large net from the inside of the cattle are also to be made today. And then the horns also have to be buried, like the skulls and later the dandelion packets. Jakob Ganten had invited biodynamic farmers and house gardeners to the farm Apfeltraum to jointly produce the biodynamic preparations, as always, at the end of September around Michaeliday. A custom in many biodynamic working groups, where farmers produce their own excitation fertilizer with agricultural substances. Christoph Willer is now responsible for guidance and questions as an expert. And there are plenty of them when something becomes practical.
Will the quality in spring be different when digging? Two types of manure, from cows with pasture and which only with hay feeding are filled. Currently, the pit is too wet for the horns - it has rained for weeks. So sand has to be brought in. Doesn't the oak bark need to be moistened before it is filled into the skull? Is this net from the cow's guts useful? Yes, that's nice and thin. It depends on careful work, in the induced, natural maturation process of the preparation in the soil, a lot can still go wrong. And the quality of the preparations plays a role: rotten compost or spray preparations are unsuitable. In this way, preparations for other Demeter companies are produced together and at the same time they exchange techniques and quality. In the afternoon, an experience report on differently produced valerian preparation follows.
Bringing the work to earth
Christoph Willer filling horns in the cowshed, Pretschen
Christoph Willer has been working intensively with the biodynamic preparations for almost 30 years, more or less in his main profession. In Berlin, the pastor's son from northern Hesse had already buried cow horns in the backyard, while other houses occupied. Through his interest in nature, he had come across biodynamics as a student of landscape planning and was interested in its background. At the biological-dynamic home gardening group in Berlin, Willer then learned how to produce the preparations. In the scientific year at the University of the Humanities in Dornach, the Goetheanist approach of anthroposophy to natural phenomena opened up to him.
Despite university graduation, office work was no prospect for him and after a short experience as a planner, he decided to do practical work in nature conservation, worked as a nature conservation keeper in Berlin. Hand firm and outside, he needs this feeling of freedom. He used his work as a starting point to develop healing paths for the forest, soil and trees, with a working group and district foresters by means of biodynamic measures and experiments with the preparations. (s.a. LE 6-2003)
Preparations in the forest - the experimental years
One day a week he worked for this in the forest, accompanying investigations by the Berlin Senate Department for the Environment took place. After seven years, there was a final report from the Forstakademie Eberswalde, which was able to determine an improvement in the soils, the humus quality and the condition of most observation trees - without liming! In addition, the crowns formed more harmoniously with treatment. For Willer, this work was a key to understanding biodynamic preparations. Obviously, they stimulated soil life, raised plant health and nutrient availability. Subsequently, in 1996, Christoph Willer moved to the ecovillage Brodowin in Brandenburg, which had recently converted to Demeter.
In the 1200-hectare operation with numerous nature conservation areas, he led the preparation work, initially supported by Günter Graf Finkenstein. Since 2005, he has been the man for the preparations in the Demeter-Landgut Pretschen on the edge of the Spreewald, with 800 hectares also a larger Demeter company, managed by Sascha Philipp. There Christoph Willer lives there as a farm worker with a special mission modestly with his cat, focused on his tasks, without a mobile phone, without a computer.
The preparations - a spiritual gift
Preparation warehouse
Filling of horn manure
Digging up horn manure
Stirring stand
Field team Landgut Pretschen
Willer is solely responsible for the production and application of the preparations, in addition to gripping other work in the company. A quarter of his time, about ten weeks a year, especially in autumn and spring, took up the preparations in Brodowin, less than three quarters of an hour per hectare. Also in Pretschen is high season for the application of the biodynamic spray preparations between Easter and Pentecost, in late summer and autumn it goes step by step. Of course, Christoph Willer produces them all himself, after all, they are means from agriculture, vividly linked to each other to something effectively new.
But time is short for collecting the flowers - apprentices from the neighboring Demeter nursery and free biodynamic training help out. The dandelion flower, for example, must be picked at exactly the right time, otherwise it becomes a dandelion when dried; preferably on light/flower days according to Maria Thun's calendar.
When I visit Christoph Willer, it's time to stuff the horns. He only feeds two dry cows with hay - then the consistency of the wort is right. Horn manure is something of a memory force in the company for him, while the compost preparations are supposed to make them sensitive to the current mental-aststral forces. For him, they are converters, condense the effects of the zodiac. The biodynamic spray preparations, on the other hand, and Christoph Willer also includes the horsetail preparation, rather ensure a balance of the influences of the sun, moon and earth, invite the forces of the creative powers. If you want to work with them, then you also need a moral foundation. Because the decisive factor for the effectiveness is to connect with the preparation work.
workplace preparations
For this purpose, Christoph Willer has built a high stand specially on one of the Pretschen large sheds with raw peeled trunks. At a height of four meters, the stirring barrels and the preparation storage stand on the cool north side, so that it does not sweat when stirring by hand - at least in a 500 l barrel. The syringe on a hanger is also self-made, a propeller sprays the stirred preparation. "Do not use plastic, this reduces the effect," recommends Willer. He uses rubber hoses with small iron filters and brass nozzles, the tank is galvanized. With 20 m working width and little pressure, a maximum of 2 bar, it produces about 10 to 20 liters per ha, in one morning 50 ha can be achieved. As a rule, he can only get along with every preparation.
Between Easter and Pentecost is the most intense time when it comes to the application of the preparations. Willer starts with horn manure as early as possible in February, March. If the solar forces promote the substance build-up of the plants, then horn pebbles are used, usually only once, in autumn then horn manure on the ground for the winterings. If it is in time, then depending on the stock, there is also an additional injection, on seed fields, e.g. B. or if he has the feeling that the soil needs horn manure again in spring or the green is not as fresh as it should be. In general, the green: in the forest he has learned to distinguish the numerous facets of the green and to draw back the stocks. "If I see something after the injection, it is most likely due to the change of color or the fact that the stock has become more uniform the following day."
It depends on the quality
One hour of deepening: stir the preparation
But of course, you can only expect an effect if everything is optimized, from the right soil preparation and biodynamic seeds to the spraying technique and of course preparations from your own farm - also in good condition. He stores the preparations moist, in clay pots surrounded by peat.
Willer does not make flatbread preparation, and addresses the danger of "abbreviations" and simplifications. His goal is dignified preparation work, especially on the light soils here. There must be compost on it, no substitute. He also refrains from experimenting with other preparations: "Enthusiasm is good. But we don't have to invent new preparations now, but first ask whether we have really done everything that Steiner has stated," he notes critically on the trial mood of some biodynamic companies. "You should not mix things in the spiritual field," says his conviction. Otherwise, you don't know afterwards what works and what doesn't. "It is important that we make experiences ourselves, make our thinking agile." In his opinion, the desire to shorten this learning process overlooks that you also have to change yourself. "There is no better way to immerse yourself in the court individuality than when stirring. I have the best ideas in this hour."
In the preparation discussion, Willer focuses on the essentials: becoming capable of judgment himself, he attaches importance to this in himself and also when he imparts his knowledge. Christoph Willer has the right ear to the practice in his own garden. There, on the shore of a Spree arm, his bees also stand, in addition to the interest in old churches one of his hobbies. He has been multiplying six potato varieties for years, amashes potato beetles and makes experiments with different preparation qualities and on the effect of horsetail sprays: horns are filled or dug up to different sun or moon positions. Being able to assess the astral effect of the sun and the moon in a differentiated way is his concern. He also has the rhythms of the moon and planets in consciousness, checks special places in the geomantic earth lattice, to dig preparations.
Mirror of the company
For the preparation worker, his work results in a look at the ideals of a company. This starts with the flat and dung texture - among other things the question: Is the straw enough for a good rot of the manure? - and allows suggestions for the rounding of the farm organism and the expression of the special biodynamic quality via feeding and soil. But the required thorough and long-term biodynamic work today is often in tension with the short-term profitability. The handling of the biodynamic preparations is also essential, but not only a matter for the boss - the apprentices must also learn this, this is the best introduction to the biodynamic terms and the consideration of the company from them.
Willer advises movers to start making the horn manure right away and preparing the compost. Then you can gradually tap into the other preparations - together in the regional Demeter working group. If possible, you should not take an old plant protection sprayer for application, and stir it quietly with your hand, which also brings structure to work as a side effect. When the reason is laid, set up a preparation place, but not provisionally, because everything should be ready to get started. If you first have to dig the barrel out of the barn, then mood and quality suffer.
Enable biodynamic training
Once a month, Willer teaches the apprentices of free biodynamic training in the East from Saturday to Tuesday. He co-founded it himself and it consists of working on Demeter companies plus participating in the monthly seminars, all over four years. Then the state journeyman's examination may be taken.
In the care of young people, however, other than professional qualities are asked for human questions and problems of his protégés, the 52-year-old who lives alone always has an open ear and practical advice. It's a bit like having children, he is happy. With convincing seriousness, he inspires young people and ensures that they stay on track.
He is also part of the in-depth weeks in biodynamic agriculture and anthroposophy at the Goetheanum as a lecturer, quoting the agriculture course literally and taking it back to the basics with an overview. He maintains the professional exchange at the regular international meeting of biodynamic preparation specialists in February. He made an arrangement with the Pretschen estate for his travels. And can thus also contribute elsewhere to the understanding and benefit of the preparations.
Demeter-Landgut Pretschen
600 ha of field, 240 ha of grassland, about 40 ha of forest
275 dairy cows and offspring (a total of 600 head cattle)
Dairy farm, with nursery and special farm branch chicory (10 ha)
Farm shop, café, bread, sausage assortment, linseed oil
approx. 25 permanent employees
Biological-dynamic since 1999
Manager: Sascha Philipp
http://www.landgut-pretschen.de
Preparations on Pretschen: Christoph Willer, Am Landgut 1c, Pretschen